British Columbia prides itself on its historic ties with, geographical proximity to, and vibrant economic relations with the Asia-Pacific region. But according to a study, secondary-school students in the province are not learning enough about this part of the world that is a major source of new immigrants to Canada.

The authors of Asia Pacific Studies in the Secondary Schools of British Columbia: A Report to the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada also pointed out that fewer students are enrolling in Asian-language programs.

Coauthor Mike Wittingham, a history and social-studies teacher at Cambie secondary school in Richmond, noted that not much has changed since the study was released in April 2007.

“One of the important factors, definitely, is the lack of emphasis on the part of the Ministry of Education in promoting Asia-Pacific programming,” Wittingham told the Georgia Straight. “And I would say an equal part is shared by local school boards that haven’t continued the promotion of the development of those courses and curriculum.”

The study conducted by Wittingham and two other secondary-school teachers sought to bring to light what schools are doing to prepare students in B.C., as well as in Alberta, for the changes being brought about by the rise of Asia on the world stage.

“Our findings indicate a considerable gap between the economic, political, and cultural ascendancy of Asia and secondary school programs in both provinces,” the document stated. “While projects and programs in the United States and Australia are gearing up Asian Pacific content in the schools, B.C. and Alberta have been reducing it.”

The study found that Asia-Pacific content in secondary social studies has declined since the 1990s. It also noted that business-education programs like Economics 12 do not “include Asian economic growth, Asian economic and business structures, or the concept of British Columbia serving as the Asia Pacific gateway for North America”.

The study likewise pointed out that in 2006, the B.C. Ministry of Education removed from the Grade 10 social-sciences curriculum the expectation that students would assess the province’s economic relations with its major trading partners. “This is the only area in the K-12 social studies curriculum in which students had opportunities to examine British Columbia’s contemporary economic relations with both the United States and the Asia Pacific,” Wittingham and his coauthors wrote.

Wittingham said he has yet to hear of any government initiative that would designate as mandatory a course on Asia-Pacific studies. “For a cause to be mandated or to be given prominence, it’s essentially the minister of education who has that clout,” he said. “It usually takes some sort of an interest group with a degree of influence to push the ministry in that direction.”

Enrollment in elective Asian-language courses has declined. The study noted that between the school years of 2001–2002 and 2004–2005, enrollment in Punjabi 11 dropped by 11.8 percent, Japanese 11 by 5.7 percent, and Mandarin Chinese 11 by 4.9 percent.

The study indicated that this drop may be attributed to both a shortage of Asian-language teachers and low demand for the courses, which “may also reflect perceptions students and their families have of the efficacy of taking these courses”.

Henry Yu, an associate professor of history at UBC, believes that Canada in general hasn’t done much even in the area of encouraging and providing support for students with immigrant backgrounds to learn their traditional language.

“We want a multilingual society, but we don’t want our kids to be trained that way,” Yu told the Straight. “It’s very paradoxical. We want all these [new immigrant] people with all these language skills because it’s great economically: it means we’re globally effective and practical because we can find people who speak all kinds of languages. But for some reason, we want those people only as adults. We can’t imagine them ideologically as children.”

Yu said this would explain why a 10-year-old child who arrives in Canada with his migrant parents has a better chance of being able to speak a non-English language than does a second- or third-generation member of an ethnic minority.

“We want our young to be globally minded global citizens,” Yu said. “We want them to understand the world, to have marketable skills, and be able to go out and do things to change the world for the better. Those are our aspirations for Canada. In terms of language skills, we do a horrible job.”

Do we need to encourage young Canadians of Asian descent to learn their heritage languages?

Rika Uto
Chair, Vancouver Japanese Language School & Japanese Hall

“It is absolutely necessary because it really opens you up to different kinds of thinking. It makes everyone more compassionate and understanding. Promotion of language can’t just be strictly language learning. It has to be incorporated into cultural learning, and it must somehow relate to what students are doing in their everyday life.…That’s what we do in our school—creating a community environment.”

Sadhu Binning
Punjabi instructor, UBC department of Asian studies

“Everybody who comes to Canada should know English, and we should exist as one country. I’m not in favour of creating ghettos. But at the same time, we should also welcome other languages. If I’m learning Punjabi, it shouldn’t be seen as being anti-Canadian.…Being Canadian doesn’t mean learning only the two official languages, which are English and French.”

Anna Pansacola
Vancouver-based English-Tagalog court translator

“Language is a valuable facet of our ethnic heritage and cultural identity. Unfortunately, deeply ingrained colonial mentality in the Filipino psyche has relegated the Filipino language to a lower status, so that fluency in English and European languages is more desired. Parents need to motivate their children, expose them to our culture’s wealth of resources, starting in the fields of music and literature.”

Jim Wong-Chu
Founding member, Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop

“If the government doesn’t institutionalize the histories of Asian Canadians, our young won’t have enough motivation to learn their traditional languages. We don’t even talk about our own history. All we do is French-Canadian, English-Canadian history. The Chinese have been here for over 150 years, the Japanese a hundred years, and the Indo-Canadians for at least a hundred years, and yet none of that is in the school curriculum.”

Grace Seear
Teacher and coordinator of Camp Korea, which is organized by the Corean Canadian Coactive Society

“A lot of the younger Koreans or kids with half-Korean background don’t know much about their culture. Aside from language lessons, we try to get them to bond with each other in camps so that they will feel proud of their heritage and their dual identity. It’s a kind of gift you should pass on to your children. It’s truly a privilege to have that background.”